Early Help in Gloucestershire

What is Early Help?

Early help is about providing support to potentially vulnerable children, young people and their families as soon as problems begin to emerge or when there is a strong likelihood that problems will start in the future.

The purpose is to prevent issues and problems becoming serious and harmful to the child, young person, family and community. When children and families need this extra support, they need it quickly. Provision of early help support can be at any stage of a child's life; pre-birth, during pregnancy, childhood or adolescence.

Who provides Early Help in Gloucestershire?

The Early Help offer within Gloucestershire is provided by a number of services including Schools, pre-school settings, children’s centres, health care providers, school nurses, health visitors, youth supports services and Families First Plus alongside services provided by the community and voluntary sector.

A range of information and support is available to both families and professionals working with them through the glosfamilies directory.

How to request support from Early Help?

All services have their own referral route, and if you know what service is required you are able to refer direct. However, where you are unclear about what support is needed or could be provided, you can utilise a fortnightly allocation meeting held in each locality. These meetings are co-ordinated/administrated by the Families First Plus teams, however the support offered to a family will be bespoke to the needs highlighted. The meeting has representation from schools, housing, police, social care, youth support, health and voluntary sector amongst others. A family maybe offered support from a variety of those services represented depending on what is felt to be the right action at that time. The meetings are used to share information and explore support options available to families depending on the needs highlighted through the service request form.The referrer, this could be a school nurse or GP or any other professional, may also be invited to attend the meeting and contribute to the discussion.

To have your case discussed at the allocation group professionals will need to complete a Request for Support Form. As Early Help services are not a statutory services, professionals will need to obtain consent from the family and complete the Consent Form with them prior to referral.

The completed forms need to be sent to your locality Families First Plus inbox. For more information please contact your local Families First Plus team:

Locality / Email / Telephone
Cheltenham / / 01452 328160
Cotswolds / / 01452 328101
Forest of Dean / / 01452 328048
Gloucester / / 01452 328076
Stroud / / 01452 328130
Tewkesbury / / 01452 328250

If at any time in early help work, it is considered that the child is at risk of significant harm, practitioners must follow the local safeguarding procedures and contact the Children’s Helpdesk on 01452 426565.Unless a child oryoung person is atimmediate risk ofsignificant harm,the practitionercompletes a MultiAgency RequestForm.

Information specific to the Families First Plus teams in each locality

Families First Plus teams offer targeted support to families and also has an advice and guidance function. The aim of the Families First Plus Team is to prevent escalation of the issues within a family through intensive support within the home or support to lead professionals supporting families. There are six teams across the county and the teams are made up of:

  • Family Support Workers
  • Early Help Coordinators
  • Community Social Worker
  • Management and administration support

Roles within the team

Family Support Worker

The role of the Family Support Worker is to work alongside the family to help them achieve their goals. The Family Support Worker maybe the lead professional for the family but there could also be another named lead professional with the Family Support Worker completing a specific piece of work alongside. If they are the lead professional they will see the family, undertake a needs assessment and put together a multi-agency plan to support them. The Family Support Worker builds a relationship with the family and facilitates them accessing services such as the GP, mental health services, Turning Point for alcohol and substance misuse or domestic abuse services as required. They may also offer practical support on a whole range of issues such as anger management, parenting (this maybe in the form of an evidenced based parenting programme) or attending appointments. They act as a role model for that family and walk alongside them while helping them to achieve their aspirations.

Early Help Co-ordinator

The Early Help Co-ordinator goes out into the community to support practitioners working with children and families who are in need of additional support. This could be advising the professionals on developing and reviewing plans, writing assessments, supporting practitioners to feel confident to chair TAF (team around the family) and TAC (team around the child) meetings, to providing packages of training (all details of these can be found on the family information website). They are also available to offer advice and guidance in regards to support available to families within their community.

Community Social Worker

The Community Social Worker does not hold any cases. They act as an advisor on local community cases when professionals have some safeguarding concerns but are unsure of whether a social care needs to be involved. They will assess the risk of cases coming in and support professionals accordingly. They are able to support professionals within TACs and TAFs and can also undertake home visits where appropriate.